Amarendranath Chatterjee () (01July 1880 – 4 September 1957) was an Indian independence movement activist. In charge of raising funds for the Jugantar movement, his activities largely covered revolutionary centres in Bihar, Odisha and the United Provinces.
Early life
Born 1 July 1879 at Uttarpara, in the Hooghly district, near Kolkata, Amarendra was the son of Upendranath Chatterjee. On completing his primary education at Uttarpara and secondary at Bhagalpur, Amarendra joined the well-respected Duff College (now Scottish Church College) at Kolkata, where his classmates included Upendranath Banerjee and Hrishikesh Kanjilal, future revolutionary colleagues. After graduation, he and his friends accompanied Surendranath Banerjee in his lecture tours throughout India and, under the latter's influence, opened centres of social service. During the anti-Partition agitations, identifying with the programme of boycotting British goods, Amarendra led the National Volunteer Movement.
First steps
Sponsored by Raja Pyarimohan and his son Rajendranath Mukherjee ('Misri Babu'), he established the Uttarpara Shilpa-Samiti, installed carpentry, bought six handlooms and began selling homespun textile. Very soon he looked after the Poragacha unit in Nadia, giving assistance to Jatindra Nath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin or Jatin Mukherjee). They collaborated in the formation of the Chhatra Bhandar ("Students' Emporium"), which would be transformed later into the Shramajibi Samabaya ("Workers' Cooperative").
While Jatin Mukherjee "worked directly under the orders of Aurobindo Ghose" since 1903, Amarendra met Sri Aurobindo in 1907 and received initiation with these words: "Surrender yourself to God and in the name of the Divine Mother get along with the service of India. That is my Diksha to you." He was further told by Sri Aurobindo: "If we want to secure the freedom of the country, we have to sacrifice everything for it, and we should be ready to give up even our life for it. If we want to free the country, we shall have to conquer the fear of death." Encouraged by Sri Aurobindo to collect funds for the Extremists' movement, he came closer to Jatin Mukherjee. Behind their commercial activities, their centres sheltered freedom fighters from regional units, as well as provided meeting places for Jatin and other Jugantar leaders.
Jugantar
Jatin's elderly revolutionary associate Preonath Karar (Sri Yukteswar Giri) of Serampore – friend of Hrishikesh Kanjilal and of the restless Vedic Pandit Mokshada Samadhyayi – had founded an Ashram at Puri in 1900; it had been in connection with Lokamanya Tilak's initiative to turn Benares and other Hindu shrines into seats of Extremist politics. Long before the hatching of the daily Jugantar at Benares, Puri instituted a religious procession in celebration of the advent of a New Era (yuga+antar). Sealy in his Report admits: "It would be extremely rash to argue that the place has not been freely used by the anarchist for sealing the compact of many a vow against the Government or that it has not been a recognised place of refuge for the fugitive from justice or surveillance by the police."
A few months before the Surat Congress, Suranath Bhaduri of Benares, on reaching Calcutta after travelling all over Bengal, "formed a central committee at the Sandhya office, with the help of Jatin Banerji (alias Niralamba Swami) and with Kartik Dutta; Mukhada Samadhyayi, Shyamsundar Chakravarti, Arabindo Ghose, Tarakhepa, Annada Charan Kaviraj and others as members(…) Measures are being devised for freeing India and for proclaiming the divine commands which have been received in the matter (…) After this Suranath went to Puri with Preo Nath Karar alias Sri Yukteswar Giri (…) Attempts are being made to get hold of such of the ruling Chiefs as are patrons of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal. Raja Sasisekhareswar of Tahirpur … is being fully converted to this creed." The Maharaj of Darbhanga was the General President of the Mahamandal; Suranath's father, Somnath Bhaduri, was the Maharaja's Private Secretary; Amarendra Chatterjee's father-in-law, Preonath Banerjee, was the manager of the Darbhanga Raj; the link was further close because one of Preonath Banerjee's nephews, Natbihari Chatterjee (son-in-law of the great Surendranath Banerjee), was munsif at Cuttack; another nephew, Dhiren Mukherjee, taught at the Ravenshaw Collegiate School. Amarendra had free access not only to these patriots but, also, to the headmaster of this school (later principal of the Ravenshaw College), Khirodchandra Ray Chaudhuri, who edited and published the "scurrilous" (to quote Sealy) daily, Star of Utkal.